Coffee & Cigarettes
by greenmangoes
Summary: Rachel is Puck's bad habit


**Title : Coffee & Cigarettes**

**Fandom :** Puckleberry

**Rating :** T (I think - nothing graphic mostly just implied)

**Summary :** Rachel is Puck's bad habit (Future Fic)

**A/N :** I know I should be updating my other fic(s) but sadly, my muses for those stories seemed to have jumped off the plane when I traveled to the Middle East because they're MIA. Then I heard this song again and a little bit of inspiration struck and since I've always wanted to write an angsty Puckleberry fic, here goes. Song is by Michelle Featherstone from the OST of "One Tree Hill" and is written in bold italics. Written in one sitting and unbeta'd so do forgive grammatical and spelling errors when you find them. Also apologies to purists if Puck seems OoC =)

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><p><em><strong>I gave up coffee and cigarettes<strong>__**  
><strong>__**I hate to say it hasn't helped me yet**__**  
><strong>__**I thought my problems would just dissipate**__**  
><strong>__**And all my pain would be in yesterday**_

He stares morosely at the blinking answering machine, gut churning nervously, half of him badly wanting to listen while the other half is cursing what he figures would be strings of words that she has left for him to hear. Knowing they would be nothing but promises empty of meaning. If he successfully fights the need to hit that button, he is almost certain he can resist driving to see her again just before he heads off. Maybe. He almost wishes he still smoked, if only to give his fingers something to do, instead of them curling painfully onto his thighs. Fighting, always fighting the urge to pick up the phone to call her. His wristwatch beeps telling him it is an hour past midnight. "Great!" He curses silently, acknowledging that he's in for another long and agonizingly sleepless night ahead. And without a drop of caffeine in his system, it's even harder to fight the temptation to wallow in his pain.

_**I poured my booze all down the kitchen drain**__**  
><strong>__**And watched my bad habits get flushed away**__**  
><strong>__**I thought that that would keep my head on straight**__**  
><strong>__**And all my pain would be in yesterday**_

He stares longingly at the amber liquid circling slowly down his kitchen drain, almost wishing he could stop the flow. Badly needing the oblivion being drunk affords him. But then again, drinking these days didn't necessarily mean that he sleeps. More often than not, it only lowers his self-control just enough that he ends up calling her so they can meet. Again. And so he decides to stop drinking. Because whenever he sees her, he just ends up more broken than before. No, that's not quite right…whenever he's with her, he feels whole. No, it's the after she leaves him to go back to her real life…to him…that he feels broken. Because each leave taking is harder than the last...each goodbye fractures him more and more that he sometimes thinks that people might actually see right through his body. Like there are physical holes all over his chest and that chunks of his flesh and pieces of his heart are dropping all over as he walks in the opposite direction from where she'd gone.

_**I thought that if I didn't go and play**__**  
><strong>__**The sadness would get bored and go away**__**  
><strong>__**I thought that if I didn't go astray**__**  
><strong>__**That all my pain would be in yesterday**_

They've all been calling him. His mom, his sister, his friends. Women. Wondering why he's been holed up in his apartment all this time. Asking why he never visits anymore. Probing for answers to questions to which he didn't want to…didn't know how to respond. How can he? He doesn't have the right. He'd never had the right. She had never ever given him the right to claim her as his, except for that brief one week period back when he had been too young and too stupid to realize what he had. He clenches his fist as he pounds on his chest, wishing like hell he could punch the ache away. And they called him a badass? Yeah, right!

_**I sold my guitar and my piano**__**  
><strong>__**I thought that it was these that kept me low**__**  
><strong>__**I thought if only I could try and change**__**  
><strong>__**That all my pain would be in yesterday**__**  
><strong>_  
>The silence in the apartment is deafening now. The space stripped of anything and everything remotely musical. He thinks of his precious guitar now gathering dust in an attic in Lima. Why had he stopped playing again? Oh yeah, because it reminded him of her. So he'd shipped everything back home – hoping his mother knew what they meant. It's been a month now since he last saw her. Things aren't easier, not really. Most days it's harder. But he is hanging on…just barely…he thinks maybe it will get easier someday soon. He hopes so anyway. But he knows it probably won't. After all, how can a month's abstinence cure a lifetime's habit? He almost sneers at himself. Yeah, he knows big words now thanks to her.<p>

Back then he'd thought his best friend would only have her in high school so he'd made peace with only wanting her in secret if that meant they can be friends out in the open. Then college came and he'd thought, surely, finally, she'd see him as more after they'd left his former best friend behind. But fuck it if that douchebag hadn't ended up packing his stuff and following them to New York. And then it was high school all over again. Over and over and over again. Only with more crying fits in between breakups and him offering more than just a shoulder to cry on each time.

_**But it's true**__**  
><strong>__**I'm still blue**_

He knew it hadn't been the smartest move to let her "use" him. But then he'd never claimed to be smart. In fact, growing up he'd never thought he'd amount to anything more than a Lima loser. And it had been true once, he'd done a lot of bad and stupid things that almost, almost made him give up and believe it himself too. It was only ever her that believed. And because she believed, he did as well. So yeah, they'd both shaken the Lima dust off their boots…and quite successfully too. So really, can anyone blame him for the sad predicament he is in right now? Can anyone really blame him for allowing himself to be used? Is "used" even the right term when it brings pleasure? Bordering on pain most days yes, but pleasure nonetheless. At least, it had been pleasure up until he'd woken up one fine day and realized he couldn't pretend anymore. He could no longer pretend he was okay with being her sordid little secret. Fit only to cry on and have sex with but not enough, never enough to be the leading man in the musical that is her life.

_**But I finally know what to do**_

It just wasn't enough anymore. It never had. And it never will. So yes, after 8 years of hoping and waiting and giving and making do with snatches of time together, he's finally done.

_**I must quit, **_

He's finally ready to move on and it's only the phone and that stupid answering machine that's left to be unplugged, turned off and packed away. He's deleted her number from his cellphone and shipped everything of hers, along with his guitar back to Lima. He absently touches the one-way ticket to LA in his back pocket. He sighs heavily and decides to just leave the phone and the machine so he is not tempted to play the message at all.

_**I must quit, **_

He walks quickly to the door before he can change his mind. And with one last look at the blinking machine, he whispers painfully, "Goodbye Rachel."

_**you**_

_Fin_


End file.
